Dave Guard

Dave Guard
Dave Guard, 1962
Background information
Birth name	Donald David Guard
Born	October 19, 1934 San Francisco, California, United States
Died	March 22, 1991 (aged 56) Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States
Genres	Folk, neo-folk World music
Instruments	banjo, guitar
Years active	1955–91
Labels	Capitol
Associated acts	The Kingston Trio
Notable instruments
Martin 00-21 guitar, Vega Pete Seeger Model five-string banjo

Donald David "Dave" Guard (October 19, 1934 – March 22, 1991) was an American folk singer, songwriter, arranger and recording artist. Along with Nick Reynolds and Bob Shane, he was one of the founding members of The Kingston Trio.

Guard was born in San Francisco and went to Punahou School in Honolulu in what was then the pre-statehood U.S. Territory of Hawaii. Upon completion of his final year of high school in 1952 at Menlo School, a private prep school in Menlo Park, California, he matriculated at nearby Stanford University, graduating in 1957 with a degree in economics.

While an undergraduate at Stanford, Guard started a pickup group with Reynolds and Shane. Guard called his group Dave Guard and the Calypsonians, with a Weavers-style signature sound that was principally two guitars, a banjo, and rollicking vocals. Guard kept the group together after Reynolds and Shane left, changing the name of the Calypsonians to The Kingston Quartet. Then in 1957, when Reynolds and Shane agreed to team up with Guard again, the group changed its name to The Kingston Trio. Under contract with Capitol Records, the Trio became a huge commercial and influential success.

Guard spent his early years first in San Francisco, and then his junior high school and high school years in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii. Guard grew up hearing the soft vocal melodies and strummed guitars of Hawaiian music. He was particularly attracted to the unique rhythmic sounds of finger-picked slack-key ukulele and guitar music masterfully performed by the many of his neighbors and beach boys.

Guard attended Punahou School, a private school established in 1849 by Hawaii's New England missionary families during junior high school and high school. Hawaiian culture and music played an important part in his school's educational program. Along with all his other classmates, Guard early on learned to play Hawaii's ubiquitous ukulele in a 7th grade junior high school music class required of all students. It was in that class that Punahou's young 7th graders like Guard and his future Kingston Trio partner-to-be Shane learned the basics of playing the ukulele. The "ukulele" class made an impact on Shane, who during the next four years progressed steadily from the 4-string ukulele to the less toy-like and more professional appearing baritone uke, on to the tenor guitar, and finally to the 6-string acoustic guitar. According to Guard, his own first serious exposure to stringed instruments came from Shane, who taught him the rudiments of playing the six-string guitar.

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